Document production system having automatic adjustment of content to fit the printable area of a pre-printed media

ABSTRACT

A document production system having the capability of determining the printable area of a pre-printed media using a copy of the pre-printed media as a template which is scanned and analyzed. The content of the document to be printed is adjusted to fit the printable areas by either scaling or cropping.

FIELD

This document relates generally to the field of multi-function devices(MFDs), and, in particular, to printers, scanners and devices havingboth printing and scanning capabilities and to the printing of documentsusing templates with pre-defined printable areas using those devices.

BACKGROUND

It is common practice and well known in the art to print documents, suchas letters, certificates and forms using pre-printed media or mediaprinted locally which contain markings not typically considered part ofthe content of the document being printed. For example, a company mayhave letterhead paper pre-printed with the company's logo, trademark, orother graphic along with other information, such as the company'saddress. Such markings often appear in the margins of the page (top,bottom, left or right margins) and are often pre-printed or printedlocally when a document requires such information.

A problem arises when using media having pre-printed or locally printedmarkings. Soft copies of documents to be printed on pre-printed mediaare often created using word-processing software, which does not displaythe pre-printed areas of the physical media. As such, a user may beunaware of where on a given page content may be placed. This often leadsto a trial-and-error process of producing a document having the correctspacing, causing the user to print out multiple copies of the documentbefore a correctly formatted document is achieved, resulting in a wasteof resources and time. Furthermore, the user must manually adjustheader, footer and margins of the softcopy of the document to fit intothe printable area. This is often an advanced function that may bebeyond the capability of casual users of the word processing software.

Therefore, it would be desirable to make the process of fittingdocuments onto pre-printed media easier and more foolproof.

SUMMARY

This document describes a system and process for addressing at leastsome of the difficulties described above. Users are able present atemplate document, either by scanning it in a scanner or the scanningportion of a multi-function device (MFD), or by providing a filename ofa soft copy template document. The template document is simply a copy ofa page of the pre-printed media that has not yet been printed. Once thetemplate is scanned, the printable area of the pre-printed media isalgorithmically determined. The content that the user wishes to add isthen scaled in size to fit the printable area, or, if the reduction insize renders the content illegible, is cropped such as to fit onmultiple pages.

The system may be implemented as software either running on a processorconnected to a scanner and printer or an MFD, typically as part of thedevice driver software, or as firmware in an MFD.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a typical template of a pre-printed media having markings inpre-defined areas.

FIG. 2 is a softcopy of a document having content which is to be placedinto the printable area of a document when the template of FIG. 3 isused.

FIG. 3 shows the scanning of the template and the determination of theprintable area of a document using that template.

FIG. 4 shows the rescaling of the user's document to fit the printablearea of a document using the template of FIG. 3.

FIG. 5 shows the cropping of the user's document to fit the printablearea of a document using the template of FIG. 3.

FIG. 6 is a schematic depiction of a first embodiment using separateprinter and scanner devices.

FIG. 7 is a schematic depiction of a second embodiment using an MFDhaving printing and scanning capabilities.

FIG. 8 is a flow chart showing the process of automatically adjustingcontent to fit on printed media.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

An “operation” or “print-related function” is a function that isperformed on a print job. Exemplary operations may include raster imageprocessing, formatting, stapling, collating, sorting, punching, bindingand/or the like.

A “pre-printed media” as used herein refers to a hardcopy page havingprint markings thereon. An example of a pre-printed media would be apaper having a letterhead pre-printed thereon. Pre-printed media mayhave pre-printed markings in the header, footer, left or right marginsof the page.

A “computing device” refers to a device that includes a processor andnon-transitory, computer-readable memory. The memory may containprogramming instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause thecomputing device to perform one or more operations according to theprogramming instructions. As used in this description, a “computingdevice” may be a single device, or any number of devices having one ormore processors that communicate with each other and share data and/orinstructions. Unless the context specifically dictates otherwise, theterm “processor” will include embodiments having a single processor, aswell as embodiments in which multiple processors collectively performvarious steps of a process. Examples of computing devices and/orelectronic devices include personal computers, servers, mainframes,gaming systems, televisions, and portable electronic devices such assmartphones, personal digital assistants, cameras, tablet computers,laptop computers, media players, peripherals, such as printers, scannersand multi-function devices and the like.

In this document, the term “multi-function device” or “MFD”, refers to acomputing device comprising hardware and associated software configuredfor printing, as well as at least one other function such as copying,facsimile transmitting or receiving, scanning, or performing otheractions on document-based data. In particular, the MFDs used in thisapplication will be configured at least for printing and scanning.

A “printer” refers to any apparatus, such as a digital copier,bookmaking machine, facsimile machine, multi-function machine and thelike, which performs a print outputting function for any purpose. Asused herein, the term “printer” means a stand-alone printer or theprinting portion of a multi-function device.

A “scanner” refers to any apparatus which performs the function ofreading a hard copy of a document and outputting a copy of the documentin digital form, regardless of the format of such output. A scanner canbe a flatbed scanner, a scanner which scans papers as they are fedthrough the machine and/or multi-function device. As used herein, theterm “scanner” means a stand-alone scanner or the scanning portion of amulti-function device.

A “soft copy” of a document refers to a document stored on a storagemedium in digital form, regardless of format.

The “printable area” of a page, as used herein, refers to the area of apre-printed media in which content can be printed without interferingwith pre-printed markings on the media.

The figures and associated discussion below describe an embodiment whichimplements a process for automatically determining the printable area ofa document, typically pre-printed media such as a letterhead orcertificate, and which thereafter automatically formats the user'scontent to fit within the printable area of the pre-printed media. Theprintable area of the pre-printed media is determined utilizing atemplate either in hardcopy form, which is scanned and analyzed, or insoftcopy form, which is read from a file stored on a computer-accessiblestorage medium and analyzed.

The process may be implemented by software running on a typicalcomputing device, such as a personal computer having a processor,memory, display and storage capability. Optionally, the softwareimplementing the process may be executed as part of a device driver fora scanner and/or printer, or for a multi-function device. Alternatively,the process may be implemented by firmware running on a printer and/or ascanner, or on a multifunction device. In yet another embodiment, theprocess may be offered as an online service.

The process and system may be used, for example, in cases where the userwishes to print out content on a page having pre-printed markingsthereon, such as company letterhead, which may appear in the top headeror bottom footer of the pre-printed media. The process and system alsomay be useful in cases where pre-printed markings appear in the left orright hand margins of the preprinted media. Typically, when a user iscreating or editing a document using word processing application, thepre-printed areas of the hard media on which the document is to beprinted will not be visible to the user, making it The process may helpsolve the problem of the user not being able to view the areas of thepage with pre-printed markings while utilizing a word processingapplication to create or edit a soft copy of the document. Typically,such a word processing application would have no knowledge of thepre-printed markings on the hard copy page on which the content is to beprinted. This makes it difficult for an untrained or unsophisticateduser to determine where the printable, usable area of the document lies.In such cases, the user would typically need to manually adjust the softcopy of the document to accommodate the markings on the pre-printedmedia, which can be a problem for untrained or unsophisticated users.Typically, the user will need to print out the document several times ina trial-and-error fashion before the content can successfully andcorrectly be positioned for printing in the usable area of thepre-printed media. In another scenario, the source document holding thecontent that the user wishes to print may be uneditable, as in caseswhere the document is locked or in read-only form, thereby preventingthe user from make the appropriate adjustments to fit the content intothe printable area of the pre-printed media.

In an embodiment, the process and system described below can help solvethe problem by having the user scan a template of the pre-printed mediahaving the markings thereon. In this case the template can be a hardcopy of the pre-printed media. An example of such a template is shown inFIG. 1 showing pre-printed media 100 having a header 102, a footer 104and a side margin 105. These areas of the template are consideredunprintable as any printing of content in this area may interfere withthe pre-printed markings on the media. The printable area of the mediais thus shown with reference number 106 in FIG. 1. The user's content,which is desired to be printed within printable area 106 is shown inFIG. 2 as reference number 120.

In one embodiment, wherein the steps of the process are implemented assoftware which is part of the printer driver, the user will request tohave a soft copy 120 of a document printed, selecting the paper sourceas the tray in the printer holding the pre-printed media. An option isprovided in the print to fit the content into the printable area of thepre-printed media which, if selected, will the cause the computer tohold the print job and request the user to scan a copy of thepre-printed media 100. The pre-printed media can be scanned, usingeither a scanner connected to or accessible from the user's personalcomputer, or a scanner as part of a MFD which includes the intendedprinter. This process is shown schematically in FIG. 3, and theresulting internal copy of the scanned preprinted media will include aheader of known size 102′, a footer of known size 104′, and a leftmargin of known size 105′, leaving the printable area of known size106′. The printable area 106′ of the pre-printed media can therefore becalculated asPrintable Area(PA)=Page Size(PS)−Header Size(H)−Footer Size(F)

When the pre-printed media is scanned, the intensity of the lightemitted and detected by the scanning head varies as it passes throughthe header and footer portions of the paper, as opposed to when it ispassing through white space. For scanners using a motor to drive thelight source rotating about an axis as it is scans, when the variationof light is detected, the angle of rotation of the motor is noted. Theangular rotation of the motor can be translated into a linear distance,and this distance is the size of the header from the top of thedocument. In general, the formula for the header size can be given bythe formula (x/360)×length of the paper. It should be noted that thevariation in intensity of the detected light will also be noted for thefooter of the page and as such the angle of rotation of the motor shouldbe noted as this variation begins and again be noted at the completionof the scanning of the page. Thus, the size of the footer can becalculated utilizing the same formula as above wherein x equals thetotal rotational angle of the motor from the beginning of the footeruntil the end of the page. This procedure requires that the printerdriver know the size of the page being printed on which may already beknown or may be specified by the user.

For scanners not having the feature of a motor rotating the paper aboutan axis (i.e., a flatbed scanner), the preprinted media may be scannedto a soft copy and the procedure for a soft copy of the preprinted mediaoutlined below must be used. It should also be noted that if the userdesires to detect the size of the left and right margins of the paperhaving pre-printed markings therein, it would be necessary to scan thepage twice, once in portrait mode and once in landscape mode. If it isnot possible to scan in landscape mode, a flatbed scanner may be used toscan the pre-printed media into a soft copy and analyze it as discussedbelow.

In a first embodiment, the scanning can be performed by an outboardscanner or by a MFD having a scanning capability as shown as referencenumber 220 in FIG. 3.

In a second embodiment, a soft copy of the pre-printed media may alreadybe resident on the computer implementing the process and, as such, theuser, instead of scanning the pre-printed media utilizing a scanner, mayspecify the location of a file containing the soft copy of thepre-printed media. When a soft copy of the pre-printed media is used todetermine the printable area of the pre-printed media, an imagesegmentation algorithm and/or a projection profile based algorithm isused to discover the areas of the pre-printed media having pre-printedmarkings. These algorithms are well known in the art.

The system utilizes one of two possible ways of fitting the user'scontent 120 into the printable area of 106 of pre-printed media 100. Thefirst way is shown in FIG. 4, wherein the user's content 120 is rescaledto fit printable area 106. The scaled user content is shown in FIG. 4 asreference 120′. It is desired that the scaling of the user's content 120result in a still-legible version of the original. Process 312 isresponsible for the scaling After the scaling is completed, the processalgorithmically determines whether or not the scaled content 120′ islegible. To determine legibility, the font size of the scaled content120′ is determined by connected component based segmentation. If thefont size in the scaled content 120′ prime is determined to be greaterthan a minimum readable value, then content 120′ is placed into theprintable areas 106 of the document, resulting in document 140, andprinted.

FIG. 5 shows the process which is used when the scaling of the user'scontent would result in a font size which falls below a minimum readablevalue, and therefore cannot be printed. In such cases, the user'scontent 120 is cropped and as much of the content as possible is fittedinto area 106 of the preprinted media. For page N of the document, wewill call this portion C_(N). and is shown by reference number 122 inFIG. 5. The remainder of the content, referred to as C′_(N), shown asreference number 124 in FIG. 5, must be pushed to page N+1, therebyleaving less room for the content 120 of page N+1 to be printed. Thus,the size of the content C_(N) for any given page N can be calculated bythe formula:C _(N)=PS−H−F−C′ _(N-1)

where C′_(N-1) is the leftover content from the previous page. Thisresults in document 142, which is then printed. This process is repeatedfor each page in the document to be printed.

FIG. 6 shows a first hardware implementation of the system wherein theprinter 404 and scanner 402 are separate. Computer 400 is utilized bythe user to create the soft copy of the document and initiate printingof the document. The pre-printed media 100 may be scanned by scanner 402or, as previously discussed, a soft copy of the template may be readilyavailable on computer 400, or accessible by computer 400, for example,stored locally or in cloud storage. In the embodiment wherein thesoftware implementing the process is part of the printer driver runningon computer 400, the user may select as an option the functions of thesystem to allow the automatic fitting of the document into the printablearea 106 of the preprinted media. After the software in computer 400 hasconfigured the document either by scaling, resulting in document 140, orby cropping, resulting in document 142, the soft copy of the document issent to printer 404, where it is printed as hard copy 144.

FIG. 7 shows the alternate hardware embodiment of the system wherein theprinter and scanner functions are combined into an MFD 406. Theembodiment in FIG. 7 operates substantially the same as the embodimentin FIG. 6. In the embodiment in FIG. 7, it may be possible to have thesoftware implementing the process running on either computer 400,preferably as part of one or more device drivers, or as firmware in MFD406. In other embodiments, the process may be implemented as a cloudservice or online application.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart showing the steps of the process. The process isstarted in box 300 when the user submits a print job. On a computer 400implementing the capabilities of the system, the user is presented withan option to “Print on Template” in box 302. If the user declines theselection of the auto fit function, control proceeds to 320, where theprocess is stopped and control is returned to the printer driver, forprinting of the document in the normal way. If the user does select theauto fit function, control proceeds to box 304, where the user selectsthe template size and, in 306, scans the pre-printed media 100 on whichthe user desires to place the content. In an alternative embodiment, theuser may be prompted for a file name of a document containing a softcopy of pre-printed media 100, such as in the case where a soft copy ofthe pre-printed media exists on computer 400. In box 308, the sizes ofthe header, footer, margins and printable area of the pre-printed mediaare calculated. At 310, it is determined if a scaled version of thedocument would be legible when scaled to fit into the printable area 106of the pre-printed media 100. If this determination is made, content 120is scaled in box 312 resulting in resized content 120′. At 314, the userselects the tray with the preprinted media and at 316 the combination ofthe preprinted media and the user's content is printed, after which theprocess is stopped at 320 and control is returned to the printer driver.

If, at 310 it is determined that the scaled version of the documentwould be illegible, the second embodiment is selected at 318, in whichthe user's content 120 is cropped and thereafter rearranged to fit thecropped content 122, 124 on multiple pages. The process then proceeds to314 and proceeds as described above.

The features and functions of the system, as well as alternativeembodiments disclosed herein may be combined into many other differentsystems or applications. Various presently unforeseen or unanticipatedalternatives, modifications, variations or improvements may be made bythose skilled in the art, each of which is also intended to beencompassed by the disclosed embodiments.

The invention claimed is:
 1. A document production system comprising: ascanner equipped with a motor which rotates a medium to be scannedaround an axis; a printer; and a computing device, including aprocessor, configured to perform the functions of: causing the scannerto scan a template comprising a pre-printed media; determining, based onthe scanned template, a printable area of the pre-printed media by: (a)identifying a first variation in the intensity of light detected by ascan head of the scanner, (b) identifying the angle that the motor hasrotated the pre-printed media when the first variation is detected andcalculating a distance therefrom, (c) providing a first offset of thelinear distance from the top of the pre-printed media and marking thefirst offset as unprintable, (d) identifying a second variation in theintensity of light detected by a scan head of the scanner, (e)identifying the angle that the motor has rotated the pre-printed mediawhen the second variation is detected and calculating a linear distancetherefrom, and (f) providing a second offset starting at the lineardistance from the top of the pre-printed media and extending to thebottom of the pre-printed media and marking the second offset asunprintable; manipulating a soft copy of a document such that thedocument is configured to fit into the printable area of the template;and causing the printer to print the document in the printable area ofthe pre-printed media.
 2. The system of claim 1 wherein the computingdevice is further configured to perform the function of prompting a userof the document production system to insert the template into thescanner.
 3. The system of claim 2 wherein the template is scanned into asoft-copy form or wherein a soft copy form of the template alreadyexists.
 4. The system of claim 3 wherein the soft-copy form of thetemplate is analyzed to determine the unprintable areas of thepre-printed media.
 5. The system of claim 4 wherein the template isanalyzed using an image segmentation algorithm.
 6. The system of claim 4wherein the template is analyzed using a projection profile basedalgorithm.
 7. The system of claim 1 wherein the document has one or morepages and further wherein the manipulating function comprises: scalingeach page of the document; determining the legibility of text on thescaled pages; and printing the document using the scaled pages if it isdetermined that text of the scaled pages is legible.
 8. The system ofclaim 7 wherein the legibility of text on the scaled pages is determinedby the font size of the text that results from the scaling of the pages.9. The system of claim 8 wherein the font size is determined usingconnected component based segmentation.
 10. The system of claim 1wherein the document has one or more pages and further wherein themanipulating function comprises: (a) cropping a page of the documentsuch that a portion of the text from that page is fitted into theprintable area of a pre-printed media; (b) printing the remaining textfrom the page onto the printable area of the next pre-printed media; (c)reducing the printable area of the next pre-printed media by the areataken up by the remaining text; and repeating steps (a)-(c) for eachpage in the document.
 11. The system of claim 1 wherein the scanner andprinter are combined into a multi-function device and further whereinthe functions performed by the system are implemented as softwareresident in the multi-function device.
 12. The system of claim 1 whereinthe scanner and printer are combined into a multi-function device andfurther wherein the functions performed by the system are implemented assoftware integral with or working in coordination with a driver for themulti-function device.
 13. The system of claim 1 wherein the scanner andprinter are separate component and further wherein the functionsperformed by the system are implemented as software resident integralwith or working on coordination with drivers for the printer and thescanner.
 14. The system of claim 1 wherein the functions are initiatedwhen a user of the system queues the document for printing and specifiesthat the document be printed on the pre-printed media.
 15. The system ofclaim 1 wherein the size of left and right margins of the template canbe determined by rotating a copy of the pre-printed media 90 degrees andperforming steps (a)-(f).
 16. A multi-function device comprising: ascanner equipped with a motor which rotates a medium to be scannedaround an axis; a printer; and a processor configured to perform thefunctions of: causing the scanner to scan a pre-printed media;determining, based on the scanned pre-printed media, a printable area ofthe pre-printed media by: identifying a first variation in the intensityof light detected by a scan head of the scanner, identifying the anglethat the motor has rotated the pre-printed media when the firstvariation is detected and calculating a linear distance therefrom,providing a first offset of the linear distance from the top of thepre-printed media and marking the first offset as unprintable,identifying a second variation in the intensity of light detected by ascan head of the scanner, identifying the angle that the motor hasrotated the pre-printed media when the second variation is detected andcalculating a linear distance therefrom, and providing a second offsetstarting at the linear distance from the top of the pre-printed mediaand extending to the bottom of the pre-printed media and marking thesecond offset as unprintable; manipulating a soft copy of a documentsuch that the document is configured to fit into the printable area ofthe pre-printed media; and causing the printer to print the document onthe pre-printed media.
 17. The multi-function device of claim 16 whereinthe document has one or more pages and wherein the function ofmanipulating the document comprises: scaling each page of the documentto fit into the printable area of the pre-printed media; determining thelegibility of text on the scaled pages; and printing the document usingthe scaled pages if it is determined that the on the scaled pages islegible.
 18. The multi-function device of claim 16 wherein the documenthas one or more pages and wherein the function of manipulating thedocument comprises: (i) cropping a page of the document such that aportion of the text from that page is fitted into the printable area ofa pre-printed media; (ii) printing the remaining text from the page ontothe printable area of the next pre-printed media; (iii) reducing theprintable area of the next page of pre-printed media by the area takenup by the remaining text; and repeating steps (i)-(iii) for each page inthe document.
 19. The multi-function device of claim 16 furthercomprising readable memory and further wherein the processor isconfigured using firmware stored in the readable memory.
 20. A documentproduction system having a scanner and a printer wherein the scanner isequipped with a motor which rotates a medium to be scanned around anaxis, and wherein the document production system, including a processor,is configured to perform the functions of: causing the scanner to scan atemplate comprising a pre-printed media; determining, based on thescanned template, a printable area of the pre-printed media by:identifying a first variation in the intensity of light detected by ascan head of the scanner, identifying the angle that the motor hasrotated the pre-printed media when the first variation is detected andcalculating a linear distance therefrom, providing a first offset of thelinear distance from the top of the pre-printed media and marking thefirst offset as unprintable, identifying a second variation in theintensity of light detected by a scan head of the scanner, identifyingthe angle that the motor has rotated the pre-printed media when thesecond variation is detected and calculating a linear distancetherefrom, and providing a second offset starting at the linear distancefrom the top of the pre-printed media and extending to the bottom of thepre-printed media and marking the second offset as unprintable;manipulating a soft copy of a document such that the document isconfigured to fit into the printable area of the template; and causingthe printer to print the document in the printable area of thepre-printed media.